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by strikecommanding



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kidnapping, Minor Violence, Reader-Insert, Stockholm Syndrome, Yandere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-10 20:30:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20534147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikecommanding/pseuds/strikecommanding
Summary: The life of an outlaw isn't so bad as long as McCree gets to live it with you.





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**Author's Note:**

> a fluffy 3k comm with mccree and a fem reader :3 no smut in this one, but it is still yandere

There was a very thin overlap of McCree’s and Ashe’s ambitions. At first, before the Deadlock Gang really came to fruition, the two of them typically saw eye to eye. Their reasons may have been different, but they worked towards the common goal of seizing wealth and power. McCree would say that the latter was more of Ashe’s thing; she’d already had a taste of wealth as her birthright, but she wasn’t interested in the type of power that came with it. It did nothing for her violent appetites, which was why she left it behind for the life of an outlaw.

In spite of the few similarities that tethered them together, there eventually came a time when the two Deadlock founders no longer meshed. Ashe wanted more infamy, more notoriety. McCree, too, enjoyed the freedom afforded to their gang by the public’s fear, but he didn’t want to make a name for himself in crime. That wasn’t to say he’d been struck by a sudden desire for justice, however. He craved the simpler things, like the ability to stroll around town without having to worry about being shot at by rival gang members or apprehended by the cops. As Deadlock grew, the more shallow its ‘freedom’ became. He’d become a prisoner of his own reputation, the very thing that was supposed to make him free.

So he decided one day that he wanted out. Predictably, Ashe didn’t take too kindly to his abrupt exit, not only because he was a true asset (whether she was willing to admit it or not) but because she couldn’t afford him out there with everything he knew. If there was anything that could get her to rally all the rival gangs in the area together, it was the opportunity to punish betrayal.

She may have had numbers, but she couldn’t find a gunslinger better than him for miles. McCree was quick on his feet and even quicker to the draw. No matter how many goons she sicced on him in a firefight, no matter how big their guns were, he managed to come out on top. But he certainly didn’t get out unscathed.

McCree was certain that Ashe had come at him with killing intent. Whether the fact that he was still alive was an error on her part or his own luck, he didn’t know. All he knew was that he had lost enough blood to warrant a hospital visit. He ran from the scene until he had to slow to a walk, and he walked until his bullet-riddled legs finally gave out on him. Then, he crawled.

His eyelids were getting heavy and his tattered hat did nothing to protect him from the brutal sun beating overhead. He didn’t know where he was when his body finally stopped moving forward. The only thing he knew for sure was that the ground beneath him was blazing, yet his body was worryingly cold. As he blearily looked back at the trail of blood he’d left behind, he was sure his time was up.

\---

McCree’s eyelids were heavy still, even when he tried to open them. The bright, white view he got glimpses of between blinking was consistent with his belief that he was dead, but inconsistent with where he believed he should have ended up. A man like him had too much blood on his hands to get into heaven.

Soft auditory signals roused him a bit more forcefully into consciousness: the shuffling of feet, low voices speaking to each other, and a steady beeping sound to his left. He could hear a woman’s voice to his right and instinctively turned that way.

When he finally opened his eyes, he thought he had to be in heaven. That was the only explanation for the angel standing before him. Even with your lips twisted into a distasteful frown you were a sight for sore eyes, and just about his entire body was sore.

“How are you feeling?” you asked him quietly, and your flat tone made the question sound more clinical than caring.

He regarded you with a blank stare before turning his attention to his limp body, which was now dressed in a hospital gown rather than his dirty, bloodied clothes. Bandages seemed to be wrapped around him from head to toe, but the one unconcealed part was the Deadlock tattoo on his left forearm. It was futile to try hiding it now since you were likely the nurse who’d cleaned and dressed his wounds, but he sank his arm beneath the thin bed sheets anyway. Looking back at you, he offered, “I’ve had better days.”

You weren’t looking at him, but at his arm underneath his blanket. Your lips were pursed in a tight line before you split them open to say, “I don’t know where you started from, but it seems like you made it far. Crawled on your stomach like an insect with its legs torn off. I found you just short of the parking lot here.”

McCree shifted uncomfortably beneath your piercing gaze before deciding against moving, as it exacerbated his injuries. He chose to lie stiffly in bed and asked, “Well what stopped you from leaving me there?”

You scoffed. “That’d be kind of counterproductive to what I do for a living.”

“But you saw my tattoo. And no doubt you’ve seen my devilishly handsome mug on ‘wanted’ posters all over town,” he pointed out, and he didn’t miss the way you abruptly turned your head away from his arm once he’d called you out. “Even better than leaving me for the buzzards, why didn’t you sicc the real scavengers on me and call the cops? Would’ve netted you a pretty profit.”

“I’ve got enough on my hands. You think I want to do their job too?”

Your sassy answer genuinely surprised McCree to the point that he fell silent. Then, his dry lips cracked open to give an even drier chuckle. He laughed until his chest hurt, which didn’t take long considering the state he was in. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t, sugar.”

He thought he saw some small, indiscernible reaction on your face in response to the little pet name, but you said nothing of it. Instead you got right down to business and said, “Look. My staff and I don’t want trouble and I’m sure you don’t either. You’re alive because of me so how about you repay your debt by getting out of here as soon as you’ve recovered, and never returning to this hospital again?”

McCree considered your proposal in light of his situation. First of all, between his injuries and all the drugs that had been pumped into him as treatment, he probably couldn’t get out of bed even if he wanted to. Then he considered the possibility that Ashe and the others might come looking for him. He may have gotten away but he was as good as dead when they’d last seen him, so he hoped they believed it to be true. Ashe’s fatal flaw was her arrogance and he was sure she would be too cocky to make sure the job was actually finished. Still, he wouldn’t let himself get comfortable. He would leave as soon as he was able to and then skip town. Grinning through the pain, he lifted his battered right arm to offer you a handshake. “Sounds like a deal.”

You stared at him for a brief spell before taking his hand, and he wrapped his fingers around yours to really get a feel for you. He thought your hands would be softer, but it made sense that you would develop calluses and roughness in this line of work. Your hands were hardened from saving lives, and his by taking lives away. His thoughts were abruptly interrupted when you stood and turned on your heel, apparently ready to leave. But first you paused and glanced at him over your shoulder. “Get some rest.”

McCree waited until you were really leaving to let a wolfish grin slide onto his face. He watched your rear as you went, even repositioning himself through the pain to get a better view, and he wondered how bad it could be to get a little comfortable with you.

\---

McCree liked you. He had a feeling you were a real sweetheart underneath all that grit, but he’d be lying if he said that all your rough edges didn’t have a hand in his attraction towards you. He liked his women the same way he liked his liquor: with just a bit of bite, and your jaws were always snapping whenever you were around him.

It was a rocky start. You were a very professional woman who didn’t hesitate to let him know exactly how you felt about his attempts at flirting. When you weren’t busy chewing him out for his inappropriate behavior, you ignored him. You gave him food, clean bandages, everything he needed except the time of day.

But McCree was confident he could wear you down, get you to lower your walls. He had plenty of time, after all; his injuries were extensive enough to keep him in bed for a while, and you took his treatment upon yourself because you didn’t want to trouble the rest of your staff. You were so selfless and doting that he thought he wouldn’t mind having you by his side even once it was time for him to leave. Of course, that was just a pipe dream. And then there was an incident that made him think it wasn’t so impossible, nor was it a bad idea.

At some point well into his stay, McCree had finally managed to worm his way under your skin and make a place for himself in your heart. He liked to think so, at least, based on the fond smiles you started flashing him and the warmth that would sometimes creep onto your face when you looked at him. Genuinely, you seemed to like him.

As soon as he felt well enough to walk around, he was always out of bed looking for you. You couldn’t spend all your time with him, after all, but he wanted to monopolize you. It was on one of these trips that he stumbled upon you in a separate wing of the hospital, talking and laughing with a male colleague who stood far too close to you for comfort. The look of adoration on his face as he watched you speak was something McCree didn’t take too kindly to either. He knew better than to make a scene so soon after just gaining your favor, so he quietly returned to his room without incident.

You interacted with him as you normally did after that, but it wasn’t enough to make McCree forget what he’d seen. No matter how sweet you were when you were with him, he was left thinking about what you were up to when he wasn’t around. He came to the conclusion that the only way to dispel that paranoia was to have you with him, always.

\---

Predictably, you weren’t appreciative of being smuggled out of the hospital by an outlaw who was on the bad side of the law and of his own gang. McCree somehow managed to make it across state lines with you in tow, though you certainly hadn’t made it easy. You were adamant that he let you go or take you back to the hospital, but your demands fell on deaf ears. He was determined to make a new life with you, whether you were willing or not.

The Deadlock gang primarily dealt in New Mexico, but they’d had their fair share of dealings in a few bordering states. There was a safehouse he knew of in Texas that was no longer in use, so he figured it was the best place for him to set up shop. That, and he knew no one would be looking for you there.

There would be an adjustment period. He was ready for you to fight him with all your might, but he hoped you would eventually come to see things his way. As far as you were concerned, you didn’t have to lift a finger around the house. McCree intended to provide for you, take care of you; all he wanted in return was your presence next to him.

As it turned out, you weren’t the type of person who enjoyed sitting idly by and being pampered. When McCree returned from his mercenary work, you’d taken to patching up his injuries if ever things got a bit too dicey. It started when he asked you once, and you’d done it after some protests on your part, but then you continued doing it everyday as if it were a matter of course. McCree would tease you about it, ask if you’d finally taken a liking to him again, and you would adamantly reply that it wasn’t in your nature to let an injured man go untreated.

The day was just like any other. McCree went out to collect some bounties, came back a little bit worse for wear. Coming home to find you already waiting for him put a wide grin on his roughed up, slightly bruised face. It had taken some time, but he was glad you were finally past the phase of having to be locked up in your room whenever he went out.

“Honey, I’m home,” he drawled, smiling even more when he saw the corner of your frown tug just the tiniest bit upward. “What have you been up to while I was gone?”

“What is there to do when I’m trapped inside the house all day?” you retorted, vaguely gesturing to the plainly furnished home for emphasis. “When are you going to start letting me go out?”

“When you’ve earned it,” he said easily as he lifted a hand to ruffle the top of your head. You stepped aside resentfully, and without your weight there to support him he ended up stumbling slightly. He tried to play it off coolly but nothing escaped your eagle eyes.

You returned to his side and slung his arm over your shoulders as you guided him to sit at the kitchen table. There, you began fretting over him without even needing to be asked. You removed his hat and set it down before gently peeling his leather jacket off of him, mindful of any wounds he might have been trying to hide from you. “What is it this time? Were you shot at or did they kick your ass freehand?”

“Why’re you so sure I got beat? I came back with money, didn’t I?” McCree complained, a fond smile on his lips as he watched you zip around him like a worker bee. The feeling of your fingers brushing over tender wounds wiped that look off his face immediately, instead making way for a grimace. “All right, they kicked my ass, but I still won. I walked away a richer man.”

“More like stumbled, I’m sure,” you replied, stripping him of his shirt so you could examine the full extent of his injuries. The angry red marks and raised skin were all consistent with the scenario that he’d been cornered and beaten by a number of people. You left him briefly to get some ice as well as the first aid kit you’d demanded he start keeping around the house a few months back. “You sure you didn’t bite off more than you could chew with this one?”

“You won’t be asking me that once I have _you_ chewing on some dinner,” he declared, and he angled himself differently so you could ice all the inflamed areas on his torso. Then, hoping to abandon all the witty sarcasm and shift the conversation towards a softer direction, he said, “I’m sorry you gotta fix me up every day, honey. But I’m your breadwinner, and this kinda work’s all I can do.”

You continued silently icing his bruises before they could develop, and he couldn’t see your reaction since you were standing behind him. Your voice came out neutral when you said, “It’s not like I’m annoyed having to take care of you like this… It’s more like… I’m scared of the day you won’t come back. If you end up getting shot at like when I first saw you, and I’m not there to find you…”

McCree sat there quietly, rolling his cigar between his teeth as he thought carefully about what you said. That could have gone one of two ways. If this conversation had taken place closer to the beginning, back when you were still resentful and defiant about this new life together with him, your only reason for worrying about him would have been your own self-interest. In this new life, he was the only one looking out for you. Back when you were still locked in your room all the time, he was the only one who even knew you were here. His absence would have spelled out all kinds of trouble for you.

But you didn’t seem to be thinking of it that way. Rather, you were speaking out of concern for him and not yourself. If the low, pensive tone of your voice weren’t a dead giveaway, then he got it from the way your fingertips were delicately trembling as they brushed over his shoulder.

Smiling gently to himself, he reached up to grab your hand and steady you. He felt you jump at the sudden contact but he quickly eased you into stillness. Looking over his shoulder with a charming twinkle in his eye, he assured you, “It’s real sweet of you to worry about me, but I promise I ain’t reckless like that. Not anymore, now that I’m living for the both of us.”

He thought he saw your cheeks redden at his remark before you abruptly pushed him away with your hand over his eyes. “Shut up. You’re still too reckless. Try to come home in one piece next time.”

McCree chuckled, holding onto your wrist and kissing the back of your hand when you didn’t immediately pull away. He said nothing of it, but he couldn’t help but notice that you’d called this measly little safehouse a home.


End file.
